The Orange Box

Valve's five-game package is an outstanding indoctrination into the Half-Life universe for console gamers. Read Review

Once again players assume the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist destined to save the Earth from hordes of gruesome alien attackers. Valve has created a fully realized world in Half-Life 2, with objects and characters that feature accurate physics properties, behaving with the appropriate mass, density, and physical properties of their real-life counterparts. Extremely intelligent computer AI result in enemies that plan, adapt, and respond to the player's actions.

The next-gen console version comes packed with bonuses in addition to the genre-expanding original Half-Life 2 game. Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two add-on levels are also on the disc, as are the stunningly complex puzzle game Portal and the online phenomenon Team Fortress 2.

Latest Articles for The Orange Box

For the final edition of this column, I'm replaying Half-Life 2. At this time, Gordon Freeman is frozen on an airboat whose nose is pointed away from City 17. His eyes are staring at the red farmhouse, where memory tells me zombies are standing. The next time I pick up the controller, I'll push Gordon forward into the ambush and this moment will dissolve into a familiar series of reflexes, a physical echo of the first time I played Half-Life 2. But this also feels different. Read More »

The Team Fortress 2 community is a creative bunch. Recently, Valve released new weapons, hats, and equipment to TF2 that didn't just come from fan feedback, the items were actually created by community members. But today's release of a seamless mash-up of TF2 characters and the Hollywood thriller "Law Abiding Citizen" takes the cake. Pun intended. Read More »

One of the people responsible for Valve's first-person-puzzler Portal, Kim Swift, has left the company for a position with Dark Void developer Airtight Games (via Game|Life). Swift was one of the DigiPen students whose 2005 thesis project, Narbacular Drop, landed her and her team jobs at Valve.

Swift commented on the move, "I've learned so much and had some amazing experiences at Valve, but when I heard I had the opportunity to work on innovative titles with my friends over at Airtight, I couldn't pass it up." In addition to Portal, Swift worked on Left 4 Dead and its sequel. Airtight games is currently finishing Dark Void and has no other projects announced. Read More »

In a completely unofficial capacity Kotaku brings word of one man's pursuit to create a new pen and paper RPG based on Valve's highly successful Team Fortress 2. Wade "Deadshot" Wilson found himself pining after some proper TF2 action while stuck without his computer and decided to make a work-in-progress pen and paper RPG.

Is Valve Software the ultimate troll? Numerous reports have sprung up over the weekend on how the publisher has snuck a little MMORPG humor into its latest Team Fortress 2 update.

According to the ever-vigilant Team Fortress 2 forumites who take great pleasure in dissecting anything and everything to do with the game's code, there's an amusing MMO reference in the latest patch. Check out the rat-killing quests inside. Read More »

Features

Half-Life 2 -- the sequel to one of the most acclaimed games of its time, Half-Life 2 opens the door to a world where the player's presence affects everything around him, from the physical environment to the behaviors even the emotions of both friends and enemies.

Half-Life 2: Episode One -- the first installment in Valve's episodic trilogy follows right on the heels of HL2's ending as Gordon and Alyx flee from City 17, fighting against creatures who were previous blocked from enetering the city.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two -- the second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17.

Portal -- a pioneering type of single player action game that rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment – much like how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun reinvented the way gamers interact with objects in the game.

Team Fortress 2 -- an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games. The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.